VINES OF MENDOZA

[There is] a scam that is currently ensnaring foreign visitors to Argentina. It involves the sale of private vineyard estates at the Vines of Mendoza (in Mendoza province). I was hoping you could shed light on this scam in an effort to prevent future travellers from becoming ensnared in this scheme.

The Vines of Mendoza is currently selling wine properties/lots within their development to outside investors. The purchase costs include services needed to develop these lots into functioning wine properties (capable of growing grapes and producing wine). As part of the sale, the Vines is promising investors that they will help to resell these properties when the investor ultimately wants to (presumable after the three-year period required to fully develop the property (grow grapes and produce wine). However, they are failing to disclose that a normal resale market does not exist for these properties given the complexities of growing wine, importing, winemaking, etc. Traditional realtors are simply unable to sell these properties due to to the wine-related complexities of the property. As a result, any buyer interested in reselling their property must sell their property back to the developer (there is no other way to sell) at a steep discount.

The Vines is fully aware that a normal resale market does not exist – and as such they only offer 50 percent of the cost of vacant land to existing owners that want to sell– knowing that they have no other option to sell the property. The Vines fails to disclose any of this information to potential buyers and continues to recycle property sales in this manner. This should be extremely disturbing to any government/country trying to attract foreign investment and equally disturbing to any government trying to protect its tourists from such scams. Name and address witheld Via email.